Logout
by Jonn Wood
Summary: Okay...now what?  TRON: Legacy spoilers
1. Logout

The first thing Sam realized, when he and Quorra were un-digitized, was that he looked a lot like that old poster he had in his room when his dad disappeared. The second thing he realized was that Quorra was wearing his Dad's old clothes. The third thing was that he really wished they had come out somewhere more impressive than the basement of an abandoned twenty-year old arcade.

"So," she said, and looked around. "I thought it'd be bigger."

As if on cue, her pants fell off.

"This is the basement of Flynn's Arcade."

"What's an 'arcade'?"

"It's a place where people play games."

"I don't think you could have Disc Wars in here. Or did you mean computer games?"

"Yeah. But those are upstairs. Wanna see?"

"Yes."

"You'll need to put on some pants."

"These are defective."

"Of course. You've never used a belt before."

There was a certain amount of cinching, and tugging, and rolling.

"Done," declared Sam, and found Quorra staring at the computer.

"Strange," she said. "Everything I've ever known is in that little box. Why are you smiling?"

"Twenty years is a lot of time in the real world, too, computer-wise. _That _entire box could probably fit on _this _little box." He held up his Nokia.

"And that is?"

Sam cocked his head. "It's a cell phone."

She stepped next to him, clasped her hands around his, and stared intently at the phone.

"Kevin Fly-your father told me that they were much larger."

She was leaning slightly into him, and Kevin found himself, well, blushing. Funny. He hadn't been embarrassed when the sirens had stripped him to nearly-naked-actually, he had been thinking mostly about whether he was going to need a safeword-but Quorra barely touched him and his heart was in his throat-

Uh-oh.

"Seems easy enough." She tapped the touchscreen with her thumb. "How do you enter the disk sect-I mean, the phone number?"

"Press this."

"Uh-huh."

"And then you enter in the first three digits. I guess that'd be the cluster address."

"Mm-hmm."

"If you wanted to enter my number, that would start with three...one...zero...yeah, like that?"

"And then?" She looked up at him with those big blue eyes of hers.

Funny. He was suddenly drawing a blank.

"Pants," he forced himself to say. "You need better pants. And better clothes. And breakfast."

He had a few quarters, and he pushed them into Quorra's palm along with a burner phone. "You can just play some of the games upstairs. My number is 310-555-5356. Please don't go outside: this isn't a nice part of town."

"And?"

"Bad things might happen to you."

She smiled. "I can take them."

"Maybe. But if you lose an arm here, it can't be re-rezzed. At least, I don't think so. I'd like to see what you can do-um, that came wrong."

"I would be happy to explore my full range of capabilities with you later, Sam Flynn."

He paused, wondered if she had learned about double entendres, and then headed for the door. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Bring me back a McDLT."

Sam thought for a second. "They stopped making those twenty years ago."

"Oh. What do they have now?"

"Assuming I can find a McDonald's open at this time of morning, McGriddles?"

"'McGriddles'?" She cocked her head. "Acceptable. Hurry back, Sam."

Sam cleared the door, locked the grate behind him, and leaned against the lightpost he had left his bike next to. He hadn't exactly made a plan for what would happen when he got his dad out, and he had never expected to take Quorra. His head was still spinning in a way that wasn't entirely due to the speed at which events were moving, and he closed his eyes for a second.

She smelt kinda like ozone. He wasn't sure if that was just what someone smelt like after being un-digitzed, or whatever it was called. Was it really un-digitization if she never had an analog existence in the first place, just zeros and ones and lighted curves on black _why was he thinking about this_?

Sam jammed his helmet on, climbed on his bike, and left the visor up. Maybe the wind would clear his head.

Inside, Quorra chose a narrow machine, and pulled a tarp off of it.

_Ms. Pac-Man._

She cocked her head. "Hmm."

At some point during his life of adventure, Sam had figured out where to buy things while the world slept. Between his own connections to A Guy who Knows a Guy and his Nokia N8's Ovi Maps, he was able to find all the shops he needed. The clerk smiled at him-more of a smirk, really-as he tried to figure out whether Quorra would need a bra, or know how to use one.

"Charge these, please," he said at the counter.

"Certainly, Mr...Flynn. Excellent choice, really. Other brands tend to, well, _chafe_."

Sam was two blocks away before he realized that the clerk had seen a man buying women's clothing at two-thirty in the morning and made Assumptions.

Somehow, there was a dude who had the tech needed to save information from a twenty-year old computer to a high-end smartphone. By contrast, a McDonald's that was both open and serving breakfast already was fairly easy. Sam wondered if they were competing for the lucrative insomniac partygoer crowd with Taco Bell, and scanned the menu. They were promoting some Disney movie about hair.

"Would you like hash browns with that?"

"What? Oh, yes. Yes I would."

He got two McGriddles for Quorra, and Egg McMuffin for himself, a smattering of hash browns, oatmeal, coffee, and orange juice.

The fun started when he tried to get it all on his bike.

By the time he got back to the arcade, he was somewhat uncomfortable from having hot food inches from his crotch, so he was a little distracted when he opened the grate.

"Quorra, I'm back, I-"

She seemed entirely unconcerned with the fact that her pants had fallen off again. This would've been disastrous enough for Sam's concentration even if the dust didn't diffuse the glow of the arcade cabinet to something soft and pink.

She turned to face him, and she smiled, and it wasn't the smug "Made it." smile, or the shy conversation smile, or anything else he had ever seen before. It was the smile of a young woman who had done something she was proud of, and wanted someone to know, and was glad that the someone was him.

It was beautiful.

Samuel Alan Flynn suddenly couldn't breathe.

"Sam! Look!" She pointed at the screen. "I got the high score!"

**THE END**

* * *

**AN:** There's another story with a similar premise that takes place after the film, and I honestly think it's better than this one. **I'm not writing a sequel**, so if you're jonesing for the continuing romance of Sam and Quorra, you can find it at **bit(dot)ly(slash)h64Eqb**


	2. Checksum

**The Doctor:** There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick. -_Doctor Who:Amy's Choice_

The waiting room was a fascinating place.

The afternoon sunlight snuck between the blinds, bouncing off the tiled floor and leaving patterns on the wall. Between the tree outside and the way the air-conditioner gently stirred the vertical plastic slats, the light danced in front of her. She still wasn't used to it, often stopping her companion just to look at the way it bounced off of a puddle, or a car windshield.

The nurse in front of the young woman was using a three-year old Encom. To her left, Sam was reading a five year old copy of Men's Health. To her right, a little girl was staring at her.

The young woman almost asked Sam for guidance, but decided that it was better to be self-reliant. She smiled at the child, who smiled back. She had succeeded in social protocol and-

"Quorra Osi", said the nurse.

Quorra's hand shot up. "Here!"

There was giggling to her right. "You're funny," said the young girl.

Sam dropped his magazine on the table and stood up. "Well," he said, "time to say hi to Mark."

* * *

"Sam!" said the doctor a few seconds later, enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Have you met?" Quorra asked.

"Mark and I both went to college in LA," Sam grunted. "Of course, I could actually _breathe_ back then."

"Sorry, man," said Mark, and released him. "I just...it's been so _long_! What are you doing with yourself?"

"I got a job at Encom." Sam moved his arm in a manner indicating strain or injury of his shoulder. "I went on a trip, came back with some perspective and Quorra here."

"That's good, that's good," nodded Mark. "So, Quorra, do you mind your boyfriend staying in here while I give you your checkup?

Sam said quickly. "She's just-"

"A girl," said Quorra.

"-A friend," said Sam.

Mark looked from Sam to Quorra and back again in a manner Quorra was unfamiliar with. His lips did something odd. "I _see_."

"Stop smirking, Mark. We're not dating or anything."

"Why not? She's a beautiful young lady."

Quorra's cheeks grew hot.

"Stop trying to set me up. I know you feel guilty about stealing my last serious relationship-"

"'Steal'?" Mark turned to Quorra. "Can you believe this guy? '_Steal_', he says. She broke up with _you_, Flynn."

"Query;" interrupted Quorra. "Sam went to the California Institute of Technology, correct?"

"For a while, yeah."

"And you graduated from the University of Southern California. I'm guessing you were on the football team at some point."

"Yeah, I was a Trojan, and-how'd you know?"

"Your degree over there says where you graduated, and you favor your left knee slightly, in a manner matching several common football injuries, though similar damage can occur in soccer or basketball. Given your large size and strength, I'd say...halfback?"

"Fullback. I quit after I blew out the knee." He stared at her for a second. "This is a smart girl you have here, Sam. Why's she hanging out with _you_?"

"Ha ha. I need you to keep this off the books, Mark. Her legal status isn't exactly on the up-and-up. Some of her family were exposed to some unusual chemicals, so if anything strange shows up, keep it a secret. There are some people looking for her."

"I never told anyone about you and the pink silk panties, did I?"

"Sam, what women's undergarments is Mark talking about?"

Sam blinked, and looked at an anatomy model in the corner. "Um. A girlfriend made me buy them for her. Mark caught me leaving the store, and I, uh, made him promise not to tell anyone."

"Yes, that's _exactly _what happened." Mark was grinning now. Quorra decided not to call them on it; Sam would tell her if and when he was ready.

"To answer your question," she said, "I don't mind Sam being here. And the question I was going to ask was how you two met in the first place."

"We happened to go to the same bar, is all. Please take your clothes off."

Luckily, Sam had warned her about this, or she would be afraid Mark was trying something untoward.

Mark was charming, and nice, and wearing some kind of citrusy cologne, and she felt something in her gut as he weighed and measured her. It was a smaller echo of what she felt when she rode Sam's bike with him, and she had a reasonable idea what it meant. She made a note to investigate further. Perhaps Sam would want to go on some kind of "date".

As requested, she sat on the table. Mark put on an auditory enhancement device-stethoscope-and pressed it to her chest, above her bra. Sam sat up a little straighter.

"You have a strong heartbeat," Mark said, head cocked. "And your English is good too."

"Thank you" Quorra didn't tell him that she was, on her personal timescale, several hundred years older than he was. She decided to try something from Kevin Flynn's repertoire. "I had a good teacher, man."

Sam snorted. Both the doctor and the woman looked at him.

"Sorry, I'm sorry. It's just that-well, you sounded a lot like my dad."

"Wherever he is," said Mark. "Resting pulse and blood pressure."

As the doctor leaned over her, Quorra caught sight of a curved arc of gold in his pocket. A wedding ring. Which meant, barring a somewhat unconventional marital arrangement, his "flirting" was just a way of teasing Sam.

Mark frowned. "Your pulse rate just dropped a little."

"Is that a problem?" Sam leaned forward.

"No..." Mark said dubiously. "At least, I don't _think_ so."

"And you've been a doctor _how_ long?"

"Longer than you've been a college graduate."

"Ouch."

Sam rubbed his neck, which had suddenly started to feel achy and tight. It kept on that way as Mark took Quorra's blood pressure, and spread down to the region around his collarbone.

And now something not unlike heartburn as his friend looked deep into Quorra's eyes, as he touched her-

Sam blinked.

He was jealous.

He was jealous of a married man being physically close to woman he wasn't even exactly dating not precisely. What was _wrong_ with him?

_You _like _her._

Sam turned the thought over in his head. It explained a _lot_.

"Sam?"

He looked up. Both of them were staring at him.

"Why is your head at that angle?"

"That's the look he always gets when he's thinking hard about something," Mark said. "You've never had blood taken before?"

"No. Does it hurt?"

Mark hesitated. "A little."

Quorra stared at the needle, and swallowed. Sam thought about the time she had her arm removed for his sake, of the time she risked death for him and his father, and marvelled at the fact the same young woman was afraid of a tiny tube of metal.

Then again, _he_ jumped off of buildings, and he wasn't too fond of needles either.

Sam found himself on her left side, holding her hand in his own. Quorra gripped it tightly, and she leaned into him, closing her eyes, and felt his right arm grip her shoulder, and felt his solid presence, like a rock-

She barely felt the prick.

"It's nice to know Sam's settled down." Mark said conversationally. "Maybe when I want to make him the godfather of my next kid, I won't have to spend two days on the phone trying, and failing, to track him down. You still live in that apartment above that Chinese Food place?"

Quorra smiled. "Sam!" she said, in a mock-teasing voice. "You made Mark go through all that trouble?"

"I was getting ready for the tribute to my dad I do-did-every year. And it's a container now, and I have a dog and everything, and I happen to like Moo Shu Pork, okay?"

"He means he was getting ready to prank Encom," Mark corrected. "Guys a kabillionaire, and he's still living like a D-list actor." He pressed a round band-aid onto her arm. "All done."

"Ga_zillion_aire," Sam retorted.

"Well, excuse me, princess."

The doctor pulled something from his pocket.

"Would you like a lollipop?" he said, with a smile.

"Thank you," said Quorra, accepting it from him. "What does it do?"

* * *

**AN:** That last bit a reference to a similar joke from _Leverage_, involving Parker and a plant. Just don't want anyone thinking its a ripoff.


End file.
